There was plenty of talk about "supporting the troops" this year. Major newspapers referenced the vague phrase over 2,000 times in 2007 -- compared to about 3,100 references to General David Petraeus. Yet the holidays are a good time to literally support the troops. You can help our men and women in uniform by donating to USO, the non-profit organization that serves soldiers and their families.
Ari Melber
There was plenty of talk about "supporting the troops" this year. Major newspapers referenced the vague phrase over 2,000 times in 2007 — compared to about 3,100 references to General David Petraeus. Yet the holidays are a good time to literally support the troops. You can help our men and women in uniform by donating to USO, the non-profit organization that serves soldiers and their families.
USO runs basic programs, like Internet and phone service to connect families and video recording enabling soldiers to read to their children while stationed abroad. The USO also sponsors entertainment tours to boost troop morale — recent events have featured actor Chuck Norris, comedian Lewis Black and the rapper Paul Wall, who visited Iraq this August. In addition to donating to USO, Americans can also send letters to soldiers through the Defense Department’s message center.
Chuck Norris visits soldiers in the 45th Air Ambulance Medical Company on a USO Tour in Iraq. (Photo Credit: USO, October 2006.)
Ari MelberTwitterAri Melber is The Nation's Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine's blog. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Contact Ari: on Facebook, on Twitter, and at amelber@hotmail.com. Melber is also an attorney, a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at techPresident, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. During the 2008 general election, he traveled with the Obama Campaign on special assignment for The Washington Independent. He previously served as a Legislative Aide in the US Senate and as a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. As a commentator on public affairs, Melber frequently speaks on national television and radio, including including appearances on NBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, FOX News, and NPR, on programs such as “The Today Show,” “American Morning,” “Washington Journal,” “Power Lunch,” "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell," "The Joy Behar Show," “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” and “The Daily Rundown,” among others. Melber has also been a featured speaker at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Columbia, NYU, The Center for American Progress and many other institutions. He has contributed chapters or essays to the books “America Now,” (St. Martins, 2009), “At Issue: Affirmative Action,” (Cengage, 2009), and “MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country,” (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004). His reporting has been cited by a wide range of news organizations, academic journals and nonfiction books, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, FOX News, National Review Online, The New England Journal of Medicine and Boston University Law Review. He is a member of the American Constitution Society, he serves on the advisory board of the Roosevelt Institute and lives in Manhattan.